I never did finish Herman Berlandt’s memorial blog

Another year steamrollers by and I am reminded, with the help of Facebook Memories, that I never did write that blog tribute to Herman Berlandt who died May 15, 2017. I didn’t hear about his death until July, by chance, but I managed to get myself to his memorial service. So this month becomes an annual tribute month in my mind’s eye.

I was far too overwhelmed at the time to fully process Herman’s passing, but I did manage to create a blog for him, called Herman Berlandt, Poet on the Brink of the Mesa  from a collection of papers I had gathered from his cabin in the winter of 2018. I also always meant to scan all the photos from our time together for National Poetry Association as well (I was staff photographer)—still on the back burner of the to-do list.

I always meant to go back and add to the blog, finish the big scan job of his papers that I had begun in January, 2019, but I never found the time, my own life was in such upheaval, first, my ex, John Oliver Simon had died, then I was suddenly homeless, living on the run—a 20+ year relationship had ended badly, and now here we are, July 2020. We are all firmly entrenched at one home or another, with nowhere to go. Now I have the time to finish my task, but no material to scan. I assume Bolinas is still closed to outsiders. I hope that Patrick Flynn is OK, and still holding down the home front, and that the cabin still stands. Otherwise, now would be a perfect time to finish the job.

This is a time of closure, completing the undone tasks of one’s lifetime. Facing extinction is a hell of a motivator.

The 2019 blog (which I’m sure no one has even seen)
Herman Berlandt, Poet on the Brink of the Mesa
and my placeholder un-tribute to Herman form 2017

• Herman Berlandt Memorial, Bolinas

Herman Berlandt Memorial, Bolinas

Celebration of the Life of Herman Berlandt

Ilka meant July 16.

I am not ready to write about Herman. I spent years working with him and even lived in Bolinas for a while I've included some links below. This is a placeholder.

Herman Berlandt, who founded San Francisco's National Poetry Week, and the Beat Museum, was an integral part of the SF poetry scene, and a dear friend of mine, who was instrumental in my development of poetic voice, will be remembered this Sunday at The Bolinas Community Center. During the 1990s, I was co-editor of Mother Earth News, and primary layout artist, typist, researcher for the regional issues. Our first issue, Soviet Poetry since Glasnost, led to Eastern European Poetry, then African Poetry, until we covered all the continents—a massive undertaking. With Jack Foley, we were also co-producing Poetry: USA as well on the local front. When the African issue reached one of our co-editors in Africa, he said everybody was so excited in the post office, that they had a massive impromptu reading right there in the post office....from a Facebook post...

Note been: I never did write that tribute, I was too overwhelmed, then, the following year, my own life was tossed into catastrophic upheaval with the breakup of a 20-something-year relationship. I was homeless, drifting, for a time, but I did manage to create a blog for him, Herman Berlandt, Poet on the Brink of the Mesa, from a collection of papers I had gathered from his cabin in 2018. I scanned clippings from the memorial binder in his cabin and created a blog for him in January, 2019. I always meant to go back and add to it, finish the job, but I never found the time, and now here we are, July 2020, with nowhere to go. I have the time, but no material to scan.

Meanwhile, check out my blog posts on Soviet poetry since Glasnost, the periodical we made for National Poetry week that launched Mother Earth News.

Soviet Poetry Since Glasnost 

The New Zamizdat 

Poetry Unites the World by Dr. Andrei Bantaş 

Andrei Vosnesensky, National Poetry Week 
Letter from Oleg Atbashian 

Poet role call, National Poetry Week poster from 1993

Blast from the past: National Poetry Week readings, 1993. Wonder where some of these folks are: Herman Berlandt is still on the Mesa. I visited Herman about 3 years ago and he has alcohol-related dementia, barely remembered me. Scary. Vernon Edgar looks in on him, takes care of him. Blind leading the blind. They seem to be enjoying life.

Last I heard. Julia Vinograd is still on the Avenue. She read at Watershed. Zoravia Bettiol moved back to Brazil; she may or may not still be with us. Robert Hunter, Mel C. Thompson, where are youse? David Fisher disappeared ages ago. I fear the worst. Last letter I sent was marked Return to Sender. What makes me especially sad is that I lost track of David and then couldn't find him again. I did several internet searches. Nada. Only to find he was alive all this time, only to find that he died this year. Sheesh! As Donna Champion said, Sometimes people retreat into their own lives, leaving past lives to the wind.

Bruce Isaacson said: Mel C. Thompson walks the earth! Made recent books by Deborah Fruchey and Nancy Depper, both excellent. All those found on the Facebook, but not Eli Coppola or Sparrow 13 who just doesn't compute. Dominique Lowell I think is walking Detroit,  Laura Conway walks Prague. Always wondered about Judy Grahn whose great A Woman is Talking to Death haunts mind still. Juan Felipe Herrera was walking Las Vegas recently and that was great treat.  Maureen--what a line up!  People don't know story of Herman Berlandt & Nat'l Poetry Week, they should.

I said, Wow. Blast from the past, or what Bruce? Fantastic roll call. I am relieved to know that Robert Hunter & Judy Grahn are still with us. Piri Thomas passed on. Sparrow 13 is on FB with a different name. I've got proof sheets from these readings. I just need a good negative scanner. Sad to hear about Piri Thomas. I really liked Piri.

I just met Pasha DeSaix yesterday at Whitman McGowan's memorial! All this time I thought she was a man. LOL. We're now FB friends. She knew my mom, and said she was just thinking of her a few days ago. I told her that she had given my mom a n audio tape, Leonard Cohen's 10 New Songs, and after my mother died, I played it incessantly. Thanked her for the unintended gift from so many years ago. Then she sent me a photo of my mom taken months before her death. The universe offering such strange gifts.

I had wild frenetic dreams all last night, I think Whitman was very much with us yesterday at the memorial. He was certainly in my head. I gave up on trying to sleep. Middle Aged Dub...

Whitman McGowan's joined Vampyr Mike Kassel, Joie Cook, Piri Thomas and David Fisher for that great open poetry reading in the sky. What a grand open mike list that must be. Wonder who's emcee?

From a Facebook post.

Intangible Instructions, version 2 and a half

There is always the desire to return. The tail of a blue fish emerged from her fingers, his arms were fins. Memories floated backwards in time to listen for the vestigial singing river in the dry riverbed.

 I never wanted the plane to land, but the Andes rose like a white dream to punctuate the sky. Faith in miracles. Here, Pizarro slept. There, Blake saw God in an apple tree. Time flowed backward, lined up like the homeless, like the basureños in makeshift houses along the Apurimac, or in Tijuana. Lined up like the locked eyes of death into the burning future on several continents.

Myth: I carried a new gift of life. In the end, memory fails. Conquistador y amor. In Quito, the snake dancer from the selva cursed me. The bridge at San Luis Rey failed me. Coltrane’s sax defines qualities of night but the doors are locked. The six-legged nightmare rides on the smoke. Ask me what this means, I cannot read history written in the smoke of the victor. Say that in Dubrovnik, Darrio City, Bagdhad, Blake’s London, or L.A. burning. Dante’s seventh circle.

The descending fog envelops our feet. A warning call clearing the double-vision down the canyon past temptation. A gorge divides water from water, brings it together again. Except in the L.A. river.

Do you know how to soar down through the dilemma, both following and leading? Counter-clockwise dance. Remembrance, resemblance. Which direction does the vortex choose? What carries us on and on? The child’s face buried in the moon’s path. White ravens wander through the empty streets of Cusco, Moscow, San Francisco. In every voice, in every mirrored face, the bell toils for them. We speak with our hands. The gift of hands offered language to the children.

She stored apples under her bed. Illicit money whispered in the palms, Feel me! The teeth of graveyards are built on this foundation: the tail of the 20th century rendered in the useless orchestrations of Oppenheimer’s regret. The eagle keening. Living art in empty sheets. Riderless horses. Where is Schrödinger’s cat? Pandora? The blind mouse sleeping on the back of a dead bird dreams of angels. Clear the shelves of omnipotent windfalls and quantum malignancy. The marriage hearse reinvents the mother. Death reinvents the mechanics of fear. Open the box. Not.

Fear of the scent of money, fear of poverty. Fear of the phone in the dead of night. Fear of not enough time to read the face inside the eye of night. Fear of repeating the past. I said I stayed in my dreams. Memorized floor patterns, but specific moments never came.

The hunter flame burned celluloid memory. Hopperesque scenes shot in black & white. The desire to return embedded in the fear of fear. Fear of not growing up. Fear of control. Fear of growing up and not being in control. Or of growing up and being in control. What if I ran away and no one stopped me? That moment of star-crossed thresholds.

Not saying, Now I lay me down to sleep. Saying, I see my future as nothing, becoming nothing. Becoming the breathing of the open door. The thrones of angels. Fish with the hearts of men. Each belabored breath blinded by the light, I open my eyes. Looking forward, looking back. My erotic dreams littered with scorpions. Carpe Diem. Descend with eyes open wide, like Beatrice.

Do you remember when we danced face-to-face? The way your mouth opened into my darkness. Blame it on Beltaine. Just a little more time. I wanted him out of my vocabulary and into a room with no walls. We swam to the ceiling. You flew into the light, grew fins.

We needed to rearrange definitions of speech, of forgotten rain. The dance continues. Kiss me while the bones of humanity learn how to sleep in open doorways, and eyes learn not to see.

They bathe in the streets where privacy is closest held, yet farthest away. To suckle memory. Whose tongue in my mouth? Por el loro, he said. Van Gogh’s sunflowers weren’t gold enough in the city of bankers.

I held a namesake lover who cried in front of Vincent’s Self Portrait. But my arms weren’t strong enough to hold back his madness. I thought of Rilke. Raucous words escape the phosphor screen, take flight, flock to the trees. The computer is the 13th muse.

Fear of his thoughts. Origins of a code tracking down my thigh. What I ought to have said. Or, if I said too much. Fear of my thoughts. Fear of the telltale beating of the apple heart. The heart of a stone beats once every 1000 years. Fear of finding the naked dawn descending the fire escape, each step of light defining the canyons of man. Fear of the raven on CúChulainn's shoulder.

Exponential dreams of sirens scream in prime numbers, the mellifluous sax, the real voice of street corners. Notes bleed from the page escaping a shipwreck of blood. Fear of blood enters into it, another equation. Fermat’s theorum the day before his death.What the raven whispered.

Fear the exponential division of prime numbers. The audience dreaming of an audience dreaming. Fear the agony of doors destined to be reduced to numbers. Fear the stairwells destined for darkness, stolen lives, stale smoke. On bulkheads facing the sea, and in stairwells facing dark alleys, fear the semen trapped or not trapped in translucent orbs, a tangible sign on all the continents.

 The bridge becomes a flamenco skirt for the moon. Whose father swam in the Amazon with the piranha? Who wears the moon’s mask?

Learn to describe doves, the twin orbs of a woman’s ass. The lover’s hand under my dress. No mermaid’s tail. Then the cunt. When I said love, I got religious. Learned to walk, then crawl. Desire silences the guitar strings with scissors. Think about post-modern love deconstructing beneath city clocks without hands. Orgasm is closest to art. I didn’t mention syringes or T-cells.

No need for voices from the void flung like arrows. Or the bell tower of the heart’s drum. What are we willing to accept? The clichéd rose asleep on the piano lid. Maxwell’s hammer descending in slo-mo. Kennedy shot again and again. Some are not yet dead. Others were never really alive. Fish trapped in the sheets. The approaching storm delivered in monotone. Or in natural speech.

Bukowski, dead. The TV channel-surfing in an empty room. Think of random blue noise as a way of life. Intangible instructions. Love’s fascism, asleep in a pool of blood, wants touching, stroking, punctuation. The restless sky mounts the moon.

When will blood learn how to become stone? Was it better than anything, walking on the moon? Were we ever in the garden? The endless pit? One thing is certain: Night is neither noble nor sacred; her indifferent legs are open wide.

1994, 2002

see also

National Poetry Association Poetry Film Festival screening

Poetry Unites the World by Dr. Andrei Bantaş

from
THE REVIEW OF FOREIGN REVIEWS, ROMANIA LITERATURA
5-21 Dec. 1993,
POETRY UNITES THE WORLD
by Dr. Andrei Bantaş

BUCHAREST—From the Pacific Coast, California, there comes to us a cultural surprise and exceptional reading: a poetry magazine—or rather a tabloid review, like our weeklies. It is not a mere publication meant to convey to readers the latest production of American poets (as many other poetry reviews do) but an entirely uncommon one: a sort of Secolul XX (the 20th century) of the Romanians, yet devoted to poetry alone, in order to spread publications which the public has few opportunities to know.

The first issue of Uniting the World Through Poetry (UWP) is devoted to Soviet Poetry Since Glasnost, a 24-page tabloid, with a similar format to our Romania Literatura, is full of translations from Arabov, Slepynin, Lubenski, Soloviov, Kulle and many others—verses written in the last six or seven years.

With the decoration of the journals—or perhaps it’s pop-art—with press clippings, photos, collages, and vignettes, an entire page is devoted to a poem of Oleg Slepynin’s, printed in the shape of a cross, with the title buried in the center: SYNCHRONIC.

Some general data, with a short excursion into history, and with substantial topicalization, are offered in the essay entitled, “A Poet in Russia is more than a Poet” by the Ukrainian poet of Armenian descent, Oleg Atbashian (who, with UWP editor, Maureen Hurley, did most of the translations).

The general presentation of the themes and aims of the review is made by the two UWP editors, Herman Berlandt and Maureen Hurley. Berlandt is chairman of the National Poetry Association, and editor of Poetry: USA, a quarterly, and after more than 30 lectures on this very theme of uniting the world through poetry, he decided to publish these international anthologies with Maureen Hurley (an educator, graphic designer, photographer, and writer, with poems translated into Spanish and Russian.

She is an initiator of an international conference of writers for the 30th anniversary of California Poets in the Schools (CPITS), tenatively scheduled in San Francisco, in October 1994. An earlier CPITS conference, (the 25th) was joined by more than 150 poets from the U.S. and Mexico.)

The second issue of the review is entitled Mother Earth, with the same internationalist motto as the subtitle “Let the voice of the poet be heard throughout the world”. These 24 pages bring together (in translation, or in the English original) the voices of poets from Bulgaria, China, Poland, Hungary, Holland, Macedonia, India, Pakistan, Italy, Israel, Greece, Great Britain, Argentina, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Russia, and—surprise—Romania: Geo Dumitrescu (translated by the late Dan Dutescu with post-translation by Maureen Hurley) and Ana Blandiana (translated by Andrea Deletant and Brenda Walker, as well as by Andrei Bantaş, also with Maureen Hurley). They are accompanied by fine engravings by Victor Brauner and a Romanian stamp.

In the third issue—devoted to East European poetry, Romanian poetry (including Valeriu Matei of Moldova) is represented in over three pages by the same Geo Dumitrescu and Ana Blandiana as well as Nichita Stanescu, Maria Banus, Nina Cassian, Daniela Crasnaru, Carolina Ilica, and Mircea Dinescu.

The translators are the same, with the addition of poet Fleur Adcock, the version being reproduced mainly from Silent Voices: an Anthology of Contemporary Romanian Women Poets, published by Brenda Walker and Andrea Deletant in Britain about 5 years ago (when they also published Mircea Dinescu’s Exile on a Peppercorn—their persons and books were proscribed in Romania—but well-received in Bulgaria!)

Highly valuing these new tokens of appreciation offered by foreign publishers and translators of Romanian poetry (I happen to know of the financial efforts made by these two English women and the editors of UWP), I am taking the liberty of asking two rhetorical questions: What are we doing for ourselves and for our poets, for our literature, as a whole?

Suppose I rounded off my anthology of 20th century poets (Like Diamonds in Coal, Asleep, Minerva Publishers, 1985) with poems formerly banned by censorship as well as with those of Romanian poets abroad, who would publish it? (today, tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. . . .?





Note Bene: Dr. Andrei Bantaş, with whom I had the pleasure of corresponding, in order to collect Eastern European Poetry, was the compiler of the Romanian dictionary, an eminent translator and a Professor of English Literature at the University of Bucharest, Romania. I had no idea of his fame as I embarked blindly on this translating adventure. Those Romanian stamps we used in the collages were Andrei's. —Maureen Hurley

National Poetry Week poster November, 1993

 I have photos of most of these poets.

Center of the Universe Cafe reading with Maureen Hurley and Herman Berlandt

CAC letter of support from Herman Berlandt

 

NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN SPEAK

NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN SPEAKS:

     —for Gene Ruggles

Sitting

like Buddha, Mary

TallMountain was the guardian,

a black triangle on a vast white plain.

Both solid, and non-solid, her hair, a living bridge

uniting head to shoulder, composed entirely of triangles.

The mantra interspliced dream images of her name. She said life

is a mountain.   Sit tall, become the mountain.  You are always going

to climb your own highest summit. She demonstrated, by sitting

cross-legged, the importance of strong foundations.

Standing, she could've been taller,

but that wasn't the

lesson.

2/25/92
SF National Poetry Week

Andrei Vosnesensky, National Poetry Week

Andrei Vosnsensky reading my CPITS/CAC poetry book, Poem for a Russian Child.

I spent an afternoon with Andrei Vosnesensky, who was the headline poet for National Poetry Week, ar Fort Mason, San Francisco. I was attempting to give Andrei a tabloid anthology I had edited with Oleg Atbashian, Soviet Poetry Since Glasnost. Herman Berlandt published the tabloid, via National Poetry Association.

Andrei Vosnesensky commenting on our publication, Soviet Poetry Since Glasnost, National Poetry Week, SF, 1990. Oleg Atbashian was my co-translator from Cherkassy.

Little did Oleg know that within a year (1990), he'd be in San Francisco, frantically working with me round the clock in an old military complex-cum-art center, Fort Mason, pasting up a newspaper-style tamizdat journal, "Soviet Poetry Since Glasnost," (Mother Earth), in time for Herman Berlandt's annual National Poetry Week. From 1989 to 1991, we published many new Soviet poets including Yan Martsinkevitch, and Viktor Kulle. (See also.)

Poetry Unites the World by Dr. Andrei Bantaş 

Soviet Poetry Since Glasnost 

Letter from Oleg Atbashian
The New Zamizdat

Oleg Atbashian—my jacket, my guitar.
National Poetry Week, SF, 1990.

October 31, 2010 at 12:15am ·

Maureen Hurley I think Celia Woloch took this photo

Alastair Ingram Is that Oleg Atabashian? The guy I recorded with when he was here?

Maureen Hurley Yep! He went back to the USSR, then it fell and he came back to NYC, he's a political commentator for the Russian Community. Google him.

Alastair Ingram Wow. That was quick! I will google him. I really like the recording we did together. Have you heard it?

Maureen Hurley Yeah, I'm having a bit of a nostalgia moment here. Pulled out my negatives to find a guy who was imprisoned at Manzanar—for a blog I'm writing and I got VERY distracted. Scanned my Galapagos prints too, Don't think I'll get them up tonight.

Oleg went back to the USSR, & to his wife, had another kid and she began stalking me in the internet...too creepy. Haven't talked with him since 9/11. He was next door in the AMEX building but he overslept and missed his train.

Now he's become the loose leaf darling of the ultra right teabaggers.


compiled from Facebook notes 4/24/2016

HOMELESS LIVE OFF POETRY SALE OF JOURNAL GIVES THEM CASH AND SELF-DIGNITY, NPA, Poetry USA, SJ Mercury News

(I was an editor, along with Mother Earth News)

September 6, 1990 | Mercury News, The (San Jose, CA)
Associated Press | Page: 2E | Section: California News

Some people see poetry on the mean streets of the city. Sometimes it's there -- literally.
The lives of 10 of San Francisco's homeless people have gone from bad to verse. They're still asking for money on street corners, but now they're selling copies of a poetry journal and keeping all the proceeds.

Street sales of "Poetry USA" promote the work of unknown poets and give the homeless vendors cash and -- according to them -- a greater sense of dignity. ''I feel better about myself. People can't look at me and say, 'He's just a homeless bum,' " said Eddie Wright, who used to panhandle before he began hawking the journal several times a week.

Wright said he has sold as many as 40 copies a day of the $1 magazine, enough for a night in a cut-rate hotel.

For Randy Moore, another street vendor, the earnings provide things most people take for granted but which he considers minor luxuries -- a good meal, clean clothes, a haircut.

''Poetry USA," published by the National Poetry Association, offers a mix of styles and themes by generally unknown poets. The poets aren't paid for their work but do get the valuable, if intangible, thrill of seeing their verse in print.

Some of the contributors are themselves homeless, and some poems describe the authors' difficult lives. A line in "Little or Nothing," in the journal's summer edition reads: "When one dies on the street, we all get burned."

For the publisher, the arrangement is good business as well as philanthropy. The loss in giving 2,000 copies to the homeless vendors and not taking any of the proceeds has been offset by the number of yearly $7.50 subscriptions new readers have sent back, according to Herman Berlandt, editor of "Poetry USA." Advocates for the homeless support the sales program even though they admit hawking poems will not provide big bank balances.

Representatives of The Coalition on Homelessness, which stores bundles of the journal for the vendors, said they passed out their last copies of "Poetry USA" and are now looking for other publishers interested in having publications distributed on the street.

Big Doings at Poetry Fest, National Poetry Week Festival, CPITS, SF chronicle

October 9, 1988 | San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Author: Patricia Holt | Page: 2 | Section: SUNDAY REVIEW | Column: BETWEEN THE LINES

The National Poetry Week Festival is producing quite a shindig this year in San Francisco. Spilling over to 10 days (October 14-23) of events at Fort Mason, the festival begins with a champagne reception and dance on Friday the 14th.Space forbids complete listing of dates, times and locations (for information call 621-3073 or 776-6602); here's a brief summary of NPWF's incredible lineup:

WOMEN'S POETRY: Curator Joyce Jenkins of Poetry Flash, San Franciso poet Edith Jenkins and other women poets discuss the theme, "Stealing the Language."

NATIVE AMERICAN POETRY: Mary TallMountain, Dennis Jennings, Lorenzo Baga, Janice Gould and Ramone Wilson offer poetry from early American history to "the present cacophonic and multitudinous society."

ASIAN AMERICAN POETRY: Marilyn Chin hosts a program with poets Genny Lim, Richard Oyama, Jeff Tagami and Nellie Wong.

CELEBRATION OF THE WORD: Maya Angelou and Janice Mirikitani - two of the most rousing and moving poets - will be joined by Guy Johnson in an evening of poetry readings.

LITERARY SAN FRANCISCO: A review of San Francisco's literary history will be launched by Jack Mueller and Kevin Starr.

BLACK AMERICAN POETRY: A great afternoon of readings hosted by Guy Johnson, featuring Opal Palmer Adisa, Lucille Clifton, Yusef Komunyakaa and Reginald Lockett.

HISPANIC POETRY: Latino, Chicano and Central and South American poets will appear under the direction of Martivon Galindo in a program including the work of Francisco X. Alarcon, Carlotta Caulfield, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Victoria Mirinda and Piri Thomas.

POETRY OF THE SACRED: A program ranging from ancient Indian perceptions to modern celebrations of the holy will include Hindu temple dances by Uday Shankar Sengupta and readings by James Broughton, Andrei Codrescu, Mary TallMountain, Jerome Rothenberg and William Ruddy.

POETRY IN FILM: National Poetry Association chairman Herman Berlandt will lecture on synergistic art with illustrations from 12 poetry film festivals.

POETRY IN DRAMA: Patrick Finley, Kush, the Noh Oratorio Society, Titch Jones, Verona Seiter, Paul Finocchiaro and Larry Maraviglia will perform poetry from dramatic works.

LANGUAGE WRITING: New trends in poetry will be explored by language writers Ron Silliman, Barrett Watten, Steve Benson, Carla Harryman, Michael Amnasan and others.

POETRY AND HEALING: Santa Clara State Hospital Poetry Therapy director Joy Shieman will host a seminar with Dr. Jack Leedy and psychotherapist Sylvia Lange.

PRISON POETRY : San Quentin Poetry Workshop director Floyd Salas introduces works by inmates, guards and outsiders from many poets including Judith Tannenbaum, Shawn Murphy and Raymond Thompson.

POETRY FOR PLANETARY SURVIVAL: Mary Rudge features Miriam Patchen, music by Will Sand Young and Jesse Beagle, Haiku poets of Northern California, Julia Vinograd, Jack Hirschman, Native American drumming and poetry - all in celebration of the environment.

CALIFORNIA POETS IN THE SCHOOLS: John Oliver Simon and Tobey Kaplan present poetry written by students and teachers.

APPRECIATION OF THE TRANSLATOR: An afternoon of understanding how translation shapes poetry, with Etel Adnan, Geoffrey Cook, Michael Davidson, Barbara Paschke and Paul Vangelisti.

EROTIC POETRY: Mary Mackey hosts readings by Alta, Ivan Arguelles, Jane Hirschfield, Lynn Lonadier, Viola Weinberg and Jeremy Larner.

THE LIBERATED MUSE: Gay and lesbian liberation is the focus in this program of poetry, with readings by Neeli Cherkovski, Judy Grahn, Susan Griffin and Harold Norse.

THE BUSINESS OF POETRY: Jan Butterfield of Lapis Press and Joyce Jenkins of Poetry Flash present ways to expand the poetry audience and break into the media.

POETRY IN WORK AND PLAY: Longshore poetry, trucker ballads, sea chanteys, union songs and cowboy poetry will be read by poets Bobby Erikson, John Devore, Billy Fouts, Gino Sky, Jesse Smith and Piano Jack under the direction of Buzzy Vick.

POETRY IN POP MUSIC: Jesse Beagle, David Brian, Mathew Robertson, Chuck Brodsky and Beth Margolin appear with Ted Czuk to explore the historical development of poetry in music from troubadours of the Middle Ages to to contemporary songwriters.and many more.

All this plus creative writing workshops, round-robin readings, open readings, marathon readings, poetic dance performances, book tables, poetry video theater and visual poetry exhibits. Tickets for any part or whole are cheap (call 762-BASS), thanks to grants from the California Arts Council and the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.

Snyder, Whelan, Waldman at National Poetry Week

It's come to this: after an emotionally draining day, I leave John's house to photograph poets at National Poetry Week in Fort Mason. Gary Snyder is good, Will is smutty. I cringe when he reads his raven love poem. Phew, I'm off the hook. Another lover recorded in blank verse. Not me.

Will introduces me to Philip who smiles at me knowingly as I chew Will out for smoking a cigarette. Gary Snyder doesn't remember me. Again. But Phil does. And hugs me. I'm assuming Gary's just being cold. Later, he puts it all together, and says, You're Maureen Hurley who took that photo? I said, I feel stupid reintroducing myself every two years. He said, I didn't recognize you. Grief does that to you.


I recounted, Yeah last time I saw you, you cut off all your hair, and mine was long. Now yours is longer than mine was, and I've cut off all mine. Remember sitting zazen at the zendo? Gary gives my hand a warm squeeze, and says, Yes. And we talk about the nesting habits of peregrine falcons in cities and the plumpness of pigeons.

I hand Gary our chapbook, Falling to Sea Level (John Oliver Simon). David Bromige testily commented, with a bit of an edge: Yeah, I heard you two had connected up. Awkward pause. Makes me sound like a hitching post. Or a fishing rod. He didn't think I was capable of pulling one in, and landing him too? He's always ready with his subtle English digs. Doesn't want me to swim in the big poets' pond?

I was so distracted this morning, I nearly hit a parked car leaving John's house. It was difficult to arouse myself. Sleep, sweet oblivion. How desperate he was, saying, Please please please. We fought in whispers as the girls are in his daughter's room. Quarrels over relationships, and his daughter. How desperate we've both become. We cry, kiss, and cry again. Lunch sticks in my throat. I'm determined to fight it out. His daughter stays central to our conversation. It's all Oedipus and divided loyalties. We both bleed the same time each month. Tonight the full moon pulls it out of me, a few days early.

Ann Waldman knocks me over when she reads a poem called Cracks in the World. I am reeling, stunned after her reading. Imagine Snyder and Whalen and Waldman on one bill! I am already tortured. I feel shaky, in need of a friend. And I seek out my friend Will, who is busy sniffing out poontang, and he slinks off like a coyote in low profile. Duane BigEagle, too is less warm. Why do I expect lasting faithful devotion, or friendship from ex-lovers?

The other photographer at National Poetry Week turns his brown spaniel eyes on me. I want to tell him, I'm not the one. And he is smitten in less than 24 hours. Whereas I'm facing borderline mania. The bubble of grief boils over as Ann Waldman reads. I am in tears at the end of her reading. The other photographer tries to offer solace.

Herman Berlandt gives me a copy of his anthology. It's come to this: I count how many ex-lovers are included in the poetry books before I read them. It reads like a shopping list of ex-lovers. I scrutinize dates, and compare notes. I look for some grain of myself in all that male ego. Of course, John's poem is about Here, a woman, and there, a woman. What was I expecting? That his womanizing past would change?

How we remain faithful to each other is by not using a third-party option as a way out. It's not just fear of AIDS, he says, monogamy is a new leaf for me. I guess I should be honored for reforming John. He is the Bill James Encyclopedia of broken hearts. Ever the statistician, John adds up the various scores. An almost wife, I rank in at #16 in the Here a woman, there a woman, category. A dubious distinction, at best.

A Poetic Explosion, National Poetry Week, CPITS event, San Francisco Chronicle

April 5, 1987 | San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Page: 2 | Section: SUNDAY REVIEW | Column: BETWEEN THE LINES 

Hop on down to the glitzy doings at Fort Mason to view an astonishing 42 events conducted by poets and performers brought together by National Poetry Week chair Herman Berlandt. If you love poetry or if you never heard a poem in your life, this action-packed, multi-media celebration is for you.
Every possible interest has been considered: Panels include "The Woman's Voice in American Poetry," "Afro-American Poetry," "The Latino Poetry Scene," "Native American Poets," "Asian American Poetry," "Gay-Lesbian Poetry," "Creative Elderly Poets," "Prison Poetry," "Poetry in Film," "Lyrics in Pop Music," "Poetry and Jazz," "Poetry in Theater," "Poetry in Dance," "Young Poets Speak Out," "Poetry for the Peace Movement," "Poetry as a Healing Art," "Poetry of Prophecy and Vision," "The Shaping of Modern American Poetry" and others.

Launching National Poetry Week this Saturday, California Poets in the Schools will present "The Sky Is NOT the Limit!" from noon to 3 p.m. at the San Francisco Marina, where hundreds of helium balloons with poems written by California students will be sent off to the world. Afterward, the best bet is a conference on "Poets in the Schools" conducted by Deborah Major and Toby Lurie. If you've never experienced the magical ways these born-to-be-teacher/poets lure children into the joys a nd participation of poetry, this meeting is sure to an eye-opener.

Berlandt has also spiced up the schedule with other special programs - tributes to Bob Kaufman and Kenneth Rexroth, a marathon open poetry reading, a "Poetry Wall" (Fort Mason's huge retaining wall hung with excerpts and portraits), National Poetry Competition Awards ceremony and performances by the Blake Street Hawkeyes, Noh Orotorio Society, Traveling Jewish Theater, Poetic Dance Theatre, Motion Arts and Contraband Performance Group.

And what poets will give voice to these events! Among them, Carolyn Kizer, Robert Bly, Stan Rice, Diane Di Prima, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Anne Waldman, Simon Ortiz, Michael McClure, Eugene McCarthy, Tomas Transtromer, Paula Gunn Allen, Jack Hirschman, Leslie Scalapino, Janice Mirikitani, Julia Vinograd, Neeli Cherkovski, Ivan Arguelles, Etal Adnan, Jack Hirschman, Eugene Ruggles, Etheridge Knight, Philip Lamantia, Howard Hart and many, many more. Call 621-3073 for details